When it comes to flying around the country on commercial aircraft for business or pleasure, the length of the flight was traditionally one spent without access to internet or other forms of communication with the ground.

Many commercial airlines have announced over the last year that they are going to offer in-flight internet access. Today Virgin America announced that it had launched in-flight internet access via provider Gogo on select aircraft.

Virgin plans to equip multiple aircraft with the Gogo service by the end of 2008 and plans to extend the service fleet-wide by Q2 2009. American Airlines will also be using Gogo for its in-flight internet service, but was only planning to equip its 15 767-200 aircraft with the service when first announced in June.

Virgin America reports that it unveiled its Gogo service on November 22 and performed the first Air-to-ground video stream from YouTube. The first week of launch for the service was a beta launch and it was free to all passengers on the flight.

Once the service is out of beta and offered to passengers it will cost $12.95 for flights over three hours and $9.95 for flights under three hours. AirCell, the company behind Gogo, and rival JetBlue both received their in-flight Wi-Fi licenses from the FCC in June of 2006.

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